Ben Younger's "Boiler Room" is about a small-time crook who tries to go legit, but ends up
unwittingly becoming a big-time crook. It's a capitalistic cautionary tale about the dangers of
the new American Dream in the era of "Who Wants to Be A Millionare" and Internet stocks
going through the roof overnight: trying to get too rich too quick.

Giovanni Ribisi stars as Seth Davis, a college drop-out who runs a backdoor casino out of his
Brooklyn apartment. It's a small-time operation that is populated mostly by Brooklyn College
students looking for something to do between classes. Seth runs it like a business, complete
with employees and payroll, and although it is an illegal operation, the most damage it causes
is perhaps enticing students to gamble away some of their tuition money.

Seth's father (Ron Rifkin), a tough-love New York judge, almost disowns his son because he
is so ashamed of his under-the-table business practices. So, in an effort to please his father,
Seth attempts to go legit by becoming a stock broker in a small, fiery firm called J.T. Marlin,
which is hidden away in a business district on Long Island, an hour's drive from Wall Street
and the New York Stock Exchange (the first of many bad signs).

J.T. Marlin is populated almost exclusively by twenty-something hotshots who make far too
much money. Their hedonistic lives are characterized as much by excess as they are by
emptiness. The perfect symbol of their lifestyle is one character's enormous mansion that is
almost completely barren of furniture. He has the money to buy the house, but he has neither
the time nor the inclination to turn it into a home.

All these young brokers drive Ferraris, wear $2,000 Italian suits, snort cocaine, and constantly
attempt to one-up each other in an endless parade of macho posing. The level of intensity is
set early on when the head recruiter, Jim Young (Ben Affleck), delivers an obsenity-laced
speech to the new recruits about how, if they work hard, they will become millionaires within
three years working at J.T. Marlin. It's not that they will have the opportunity to become
millionaires; they simply will.

What most of the brokers don't realize (probably because they don't want to realize it) is that
J.T. Marlin's owner, Michael (Tom Everett Scott), is a crook who is using them to push
stocks for companies that don't exist. Their brokerage house is a complete sham, but it brings
them millions of dollars. As they say, ignorance is bliss ... until the FBI gets involved.

The screenplay, by first-time writer/director Ben Younger, does an interesting job of
contrasting two variations of the American Dream. The fast track at J.T. Marlin represents
one variation, a kind of claw-your-way-to-the-top economic Darwinism in which those who
want the money seek it out and get it at all costs.

Of course, the realization of that American Dream involves the trampling of the old-fashioned
American Dream: work hard, save your money, and reap the benefits with time and patience.
This lifestyle is represented by Harry (Taylor Nichols), an everyday Joe who is one of the
many suckers to buy into the lies spun by J.T. Marlin through the brokers' high-pressure
sales calls. Harry ends up investing his family's entire savings, thinking that he will become a
part of that upper echelon. Of course, it crashes in on him because J.T. Marlin isn't selling the
American Dream. They sell a mirage that disappears when you get too close.

Writer/director Younger has a firm grasp of filmmaking techniques, and he keeps the pace
constantly hurtling forward, aided by visual tricks like jump cutting and a hip-hop-heavy
soundtrack. The music seems out of place until you realize that the same hypermasculine,
misogynistic attitude that fuels most urban music is the same gas in the engines of these
eager brokers. The music is a bridge between street crime and white-collar crime, and in
Younger's vision, there is little difference because both destroy innocent people's lives.

"Boiler Room" does have its weaknesses, mostly notable the tortured father-son relationship
between Seth and his father. Essentially, one can boil down everything Seth does to a driving
desire to please the father who constantly rejects him. This, I suppose, is intended to, at least
in some way, separate him from the other brokers, whose greed is purely self-serving. But, it
is a labored subplot that resolves itself in all-too-neat fashion.

Younger is obviously well-versed in popular culture, and he realizes that other filmmakers
have already tread much of this territory, most notably Oliver Stone in "Wall Street" (1987)
and David Mamet in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992). Younger doesn't fake that he doesn't
know this; in fact, he works both movies into his own film. One of the funniest and most
telling scenes in the film involves a group of the young brokers drinking beer and watching
"Wall Street" on video, quoting the dialogue line-for-line. After all, these twenty-somethings
were born and raised on television and movies, and one of the themes Younger brings out
most clearly is that the lives they live are pop-culture-infused fantasies. They all want to be
Michael Douglas in "Wall Street," and it is this tunnel-vision ambition that blinds them to the
criminal reality of their situation.

Video: The anamorphic transfer in the film's
original theatrical
aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is gorgeous. The image is nearly
flawless, with only
a few hints of dirt and a little grain, but no compression
artifacts. Colors
are deep and rich, and flesh tones appear natural (although
many scenes are
shot with heavy color filters). Detail level is very high
throughout the
film, even in the darkest areas of the frame. The transfer
also handles
contrast well in the night scenes. Overall, a great
transfer, which is
something that has come to be expected from New Line.

Audio: This is a particularly bass-heavy soundtrack
due to the
influence of hip hop music on the soundtrack. The 5.1 Dolby
Digital surround
track is crystal clear and handles the bass very well. It's
deep and solid,
but never too overbearing. The rest of the soundtrack is
relegated mostly to
the front soundstage with few surround effects or imaging.
Dialogue is
always clear, even in the loud, hectic office sequences
that envelop the
viewer in a barrage of shouting and shuffling papers.

Extras: Although "Boiler Room" was not released
under its "Platinum
Series" banner, New Line has seen fit to equip this disc
with a good set of
extras, starting with a nice commentary by writer/director
Ben Younger,
producer Jennifer Todd, star Giovanni Ribisi, and composer
The Angel
(Younger and Todd were recorded in a session together,
while Ribisi and The
Angel appear to have been recorded separately and edited
in). Younger's
comments are by far the most interesting as he is
particularly candid about
the difficulties of being a first-time director. The disc
also features an
isolated soundtrack with commentary by The Angel, a female
British musician
who supplied the soundtrack. Some of the isolated music is
worth listening
to (take note that the songs are not isolated, only the
musical score), and
The Angel's commentary is sometimes quite fascinating,
especially when she
discusses her musical influences (however, she uses some
irritating vocal
distortions). Most of the deleted scenes (all but one of
which are presented
in anamorphic widescreen) are really extensions of scenes
in the movie, with
the exception of the alternate ending that was wisely
dropped because it is
far too self-consciously ironic in a film that already has
enough irony. For
those who own a PC with a DVD-ROM player, the disc includes
a very nice
Script-to-Screen feature that allows you to read the
screenplay and look at
storyboards while also viewing the film. The DVD-ROM
features also include
the film's original web site (of course, if you use a Mac,
you are, as
usual, out of luck with these features).